Hey Folks!

Welcome to your weekend! (More events to be talked about here in a few hours!–plus later tonight, the weather for the weekend and week-to-come).

I’m sure you noted the name of this blog. Not much thought needed to go into naming it as it is written on behalf of the Haliburton Highlands and more specifically when an occasion arises, the Maple Lake area, which I believe is properly referred to as the Township of Dysart et al.

There’s a fantastic FREE opportunity, Young Eagle Flights for kids ages 8-17, to fly for free out of Stanhope Airport this weekend which calls to mind some of my own recollections of the airport.

My memories of Maple Lake–and one cannot separate Maple Lake from the airport if you take a quick peek on the map*–is how awesome it is when a plane takes off over the water. I’ll be in my default place–in the lake–hear the sound of the small aircraft engine, and look up to see the undercarriage of said small aircraft zipping by overhead, then watch the plane as it disappears into the distance.

*in the aerial photos it looks closer to Green Lake which it indeed may be

I’ve always loved that. However, when I was younger and my mom was around she expressed her displeasure with the noise. That left me perplexed but I’ll leave it at noting that we all have our own reactions/perceptions of things large and small. So dear mum would gently curse the plane flying just a short distance above us and I would silently cheer for the plane and think “Wow!”
My mum cannot make it up to the lake anymore but every time a plane flies out of Stanhope airport I think of her–then I think, “Cool!”

Free small airplane flights for kids age 8-17 (click on Visit Website for details)

Visit Website
Haliburton/Stanhope Airport Haliburton/Stanhope Airport road Minden
Contact: John Packer Tel: 705 754 2611
Email: airport@halhinet.on.ca

@OKBJGM “before you accuse, criticize and abuse, just walk a mile in my shoes”

Hi Extended Family,

I hope you are enjoying your Labour Day weekend.

As it turns out, literally at the last minute I thought it best that I not return to Maple Lake, given “the situation.”

Both my husband and father who know me well, expressed concern for my physical safety. I believe they see things through the lens of love and I love them for that.

I’d hoped for an apology–that would have been all it took– but as my 17 y.o. son pointed out, such an apology would not be forthcoming. It’s kind of interesting to hear his reaction to “this.”  It’s probably best that he too did not return this Labour Day.

HEAVY EDIT

“You are what you do.”

Please, be kind to my poor husband whose nerves are rather frayed at the moment.  He’s always been good to every one of you.

The weather here is still not great. T-Storms on the horizon for Tuesday, after that it is hit or miss but still really on the chilly side.

Drove top down to Karwartha Dairy tonight. Lines were almost non-existent due to the weather and the civic holiday weekend ending. It was still nice enough to grab a picnic table and for me to enjoy a new-this-year flavour–Buttertart (something). Totally yummy . It’s amazing how fresh the ice cream is and how perfect the bits of crust in the ice cream were. Best prices too–here or stateside.

Came back to the cottage and decided to watch the last two episodes of the BBC show “Ashes to Ashes.”  It ended on a question mark and I’m glad that it’s been renewed for a 3rd season. Though I miss about one-quarter of the dialogue due to the 1. heavy accents and 2. 1980′s-era slang there’s still enough that is understandable to make it good for a few laughs.

Since outside pics are hard to come by here are a few of the guys lounging plus one of the 08.02.09 waxing moon.

[View with PicLens]

[View with PicLens]

We are  now here on Maple Lake. Arrived early today after a 12-hour drive which was uneventful save for heavy thunderstorms after we turned north on Hwy. 400 on the second-to-last leg of the journey. We lost an hour (I know. Usually people say “gained” but in my mind an hour goes *poof* driving in the U.S. from west to east,–so it is lost)  so after leaving the Chicago area at 3 p.m. Sunday we arrived here about 4 a.m -4:30 a.m. I would have been OK driving more but maneuvering the thunderstorms combined with the under-construction roads in various places made me thrashed so I instead clung for dear life as spouse navigated the last leg of our journey–the most “twisty and turniest”–on Hwy. 118 to Carnarvon. The roads were slick and though I’m well aware that we have a sports car (hence the two trips) Mustang GT’s are not known for their performance on slick, curving roads.

After a few hours spouse got up (he says by mistaking the time for 11:30 instead of 9 a.m. He was looking at an un-programmed clock. He had a nap later) and out but I tried to sleep. The day as predicted, was cool and rainy. By early evening though, the lake calmed down and it looked like we could’ve had a beautiful day (only it wasn’t). Tomorrow sounds like a repeat of today only in inverse with the a.m. nice and showers and thunderstorms throughout the afternoon and evening. Spouse must retrieve both our son and our dog and then we’ll all be together for the  better part of 3 weeks. It’ll be the split trip going home again with me staying behind  to go on the second trip back, so I’ll probably end up with  close to four weeks here. I’m not complaining. Here are photos of our Maple Lake View from this evening. Trying settings on new camera. Pretty sure they are not “right” yet. It’s a 12X tele wide angle many pixeled model, priced more than my last point and shoot but less than my now-antique SLR. It’s all lens and screen–very small housing–which I like. Hope to get to know it well in the next month (and beyond).

One last thing: There are bats as in “bats” in a closed-off stove pipe (they passed an anti-fire law and we had to remove an antique wood burning stove) that is open-ended outside. and begins in the very centre of the cooking area in the kitchen. They are really loud and not-pleasant-sounding. Probably feel the same about me. Ha!

Above: Maple Lake – July 2008

Since I run through the weekly weather cast for cottage country, specifically the Maple Lake area/Haliburton Highlands, I’ve been acutely aware of the cooler and wetter-than-normal summer that the area has been experiencing.

It’s been my experience that if you get a cooler than normal summer without a lot of rain, it’s fairly easy to adjust to by wearing a bit more clothing. There’s still enough sunny days and people find a way to enjoy themselves. Conversely, if you have a summer with normal temperatures but more rain than usual you can adapt to that as well. Going out in warm summer rain is wholly different than a chilly rainy summer day. And that’s what’s been far too often the case for the Maple Lake area/Haliburton Highlands thus far for the summer of 2009.

Now comes the Weather Channel with their best guess about what is to come for the remainder of the summer:

From the Weather Channel’s Chris St. Clair.

A few facts: Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg have been 2 to 4 degrees below average almost day in, day out since the season began. Halifax nearly doubled its average June rainfall. Days with more cloud cover than sun were common nearly all across Canada….

The rest of the summer, August at least, will be very close to average for nearly all of the country. The temperature should be where it ought to be but it is likely that cloudier and rainier days might prevail in the east…
… the weather pattern over North America and the weather we’ve had during the first part of our summer has a lot to do with something called the North Atlantic Oscillation, a pattern uncovered in the 1920’s by Sir Gilbert Walker.

The North Atlantic Oscillation is a variance in the location of a large area of strong and stable high pressure. For the past many weeks it has developed over Greenland and the Labrador Sea.
The emergence of the North Atlantic Oscillation has lead to a block in the usual, steady west to east migration of unsettled low pressure across our continent.

Simply, the cool rainy weather is stopped once it gets to the Great Lakes Basin because it cannot get past the big, stable high pressure over the western Atlantic. Not until the high pressure, that has manifested itself further east, relaxes will there be a change in the pattern.

While science continues to study the underlying reasons for the temperament and frequency of the oscillation, we can report that it is easing and more typical summer weather is returning to eastern Canada.

So, the upshot is that it may warm up some but in the eastern Canada, which is where Maple Lake, Ontario is, there will still be above-average rainfall.

This truly sounds like a repeat from the summer of 2008. I know my relatives were very unhappy about it. They have a somewhat different relationship with “going to the Lake” than I do (and I would gladly swap places with them). They are weekenders as well as vactioners as they are easy driving distance to the Lake from their permanent residences.

For me and my little family Maple Lake is a 700 mile drive so with the exception of Labour Day weekend, once we get to the Lake we stay as long as we can. I suppose in some ways, that makes us lucky though as we get a bigger picture-view of being at the Lake. The weekend for example may in a word “suck” weather-wise but come Monday or Tuesday it may be lovely for a few days and then as the next weekend rolls around it make get sucky yet again. Since we are there for the mid-week clearing up and temperature rise we still see good weather and as it worked for me last year a few days of good weather each week turned into a total of about a week of really good weather and while not overjoyed with how that worked out I was still awfully happy to be at the Lake. That is how I’ve benefited from not having the Lake at my disposal for most of my life. It means more to me because it is such a big deal to get there. It takes great planning and time off of work, neither of which is neccesary for someone who lives within a couple hours of the Lake. I’m not saying weekenders do not appreciate Valhalla while they are there but that I may appreciate it just a bit more than they.

Laguna Beach, CA - April 2009

Sometimes life just does not cooperate the way one would like it to. Basically my heart failure led us as a family from being comfortably middle class income to with one full time and 2 part time jobs clinging to the thin line between lower mid and middle middle class. That the car that was to carry most of our “stuff” for a 3-week stay at Maple Lake cannot be trusted to endure the rigors of the road trip is just one more thing. I’m not terribly upset about it when, on the balance we are darn lucky to have a cottage to go to, that my spouse’s company, despite cutting back in so many other ways (promotions, bonuses, co-pay on medical getting crazy high) he still gets a goodly amount of paid time off. It’s just really annoying and frustrating and inconvenient but none of that carries the gravity of ill health or losing a job or a home or the dog dying, for that matter. And all those things are not happening to us . (To clarify: I am stable though considered disabled from heart disease–I feel good! )

We are grappling with none of those, just that we are going to have to make 2 trips up to the Lake and two trips home because our good car is a Mustang GT in which we cannot cram everyone and all our stuff. We pulled it off before but our now almost-17 y.o. son is 6’3″ and cannot fold himself into what is only a token gesture of a back seat.

Renting a car came to mind. The cost of doing so has skyrocketed. And doing so one way, say to Buffalo or Niagara Falls to do a swap, zipping back and forth the few hours from the Lake is a no-go because the rental cars peeps do not want to play ball with us (“no cars available”).

So I’m trying to put on a happy face now that this trip is turning into what hopefully won’t be a logistical nightmare.
The upside is, by the time we get everyone to the Lake it appears as if the crap weather will cease at least for a bit. Wish I had a crystal ball. Been wishing for one of those for as long as I can remember.

Lake Muscoka, July 15, 2009

It’s difficult to put into words the feelings one has when about to embark on a trip that will keep them from home for the better part of a month. I have a to-do list in my head which I really should transfer to text–if I could find the time.

Last year I burnt up quite a bit of time at the Lake by working. Cottage County installed the base station for internet at (on, actually) our cottage so even though I swore I’d take a week off from work, I never did.

This year is decidedly different in that work has changed considerably. I’m doing more work independently but with that comes more juggling of  saying “stop!” to it for  the duration. As much as Canada doesn’t seem like a foreign country as far as mail service it is. Certainly in terms of internet access to a number of United States-based websites it is. Both these restrictions may prove either incentives to work less or work more.

Trying to find a workaround for them could consume large chunks of time and may ultimately prove fruitless. If I just say “no” to work completely then I won’t have to fret about getting access to the websites which provides a good deal of substance which I transform into content (I create content for put simply, things I like). I suppose it would be smart to find out just “how ” restrictive using the Canadian internet will be . (Is there such a thing? It’s probably using the Internet in Canada, right?). I hear so much about China and North Korea and other countries being crazy restrictive. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.

I can keep my freelancing gigs to a point but there’s also a point where I’m defeating the purpose of vacation. Ten days to go and I’m juggling so much that I’m not even worried about the weather.

Guess it just proves  that old saying about everything being relative. I do hope we get some good weather though. I’ve been watching the forecast for Maple Lake and right now, I see the first couple days of vacation ( should I say “holiday”?) look good temperature-wise though there is rain one day. The upside of regular rain is less fire hazard (though one must always be cautious–we are in the woods after all). The downside besides literally putting a damper on things is the bugs! My cure for too many bugs generally has been to stay in the Lake but not in the rain. See? Fret. Fret. Fret. Always wanted to be a Type “B” personality–never got there.

And where are all the people on Maple Lake who were supposed to sign up for Internet so our fee could go down? Don’t you know you can get television, too? No separate service, simply be slightly savvy and you can find your programs through the Internet and since it’s high-speed and since if you live on the Lake you cannot be far from us–the base station–your reception should be good. What are you waiting for? I’ll come over and show you the ropes as I’ve already –with son and spouse– gone through it. I’m seriously concerned that if people don’t sign up I’ll lose my service because I cannot see paying for 12 mos. of service and using it for barely one month. OK. I’d say I’ve fulfilled my fretting requirement for one day. Have a good one!

[View with PicLens]

I was a bit worried that cottage country would have another summer like last year’s which was a huge disappointment to many cottagers. It was quite chilly and it rained often.  I checked this summer’s forecast and the meteorologists are saying no, this summer will be more like a normal summer with temperatures that should keep most folks happy. There maybe a bit more rain than usual but not a lot. I really hope they are right, but when you are there for an extended period you don’t have to hope that your two weeks will be nice because there’s another two weeks and so forth, that may be just fine. That’s the fortunate circumstance that I find myself in and my spouse is taking three weeks plus the Labour Day weekend. Honestly, if it just warms up I’m OK with a bit more rain than normal.

Above – Maple Lake Ontario, Canada – May 2009

Spouse did the opening this year as things on the home front are a bit busy. We have a son who is a high school junior and things are already heating up for the year following graduation (pick a university, etc.) And the end of the year projects all coming due. An adult needed to be here and so I was — but I missed out!

We still have that family of bats in the wood-burning stove (which was taken out) chimney but spouse has them sealed out of the cottage, which is good.

Except for the rocks on the bank, things seemed to have stood up well over the winter and the Internet is working great–but still there’s “stuff” to be taken care of here. I’ll make sure I spend weeks on the lake this summer–at a minimum.
My spirit needs it to recharge.

Something that living on Maple Lake each summer reminded me of was how much we are connected with the earth. From the experience of quite literally going weeks without wearing shoes, feeling with each step the ground beneath my feet, to taking the pail and going “down the hill” to fetch drinking water for our next meal, to the great care we had to take in regard to our septic system–there were always concrete reminders that nature was valued. There was a synchronicity I felt then and to a degree do now–though now it feels  like I have to make more of a conscious effort to actually be in sync with my environment. Whether that means sorting my trash and garbage into 4 different types and disposing of each in a distinct way or fretting about the impact that my dishwater might have if it somehow makes it’s way down to the lake, every day there are choices to be made about how I will interact with our Earth.

In this spirit I’d like to remind you all of one of many wonderful events and exhibitions that can inspire and motivate you to be a guardian of planet Earth.

The Green Legacy
Continuing until May 30
Be prepared to be inspired by exhibits featuring R.D. Lawrence’s environmental crusade for conservation and protection of wild animals, as well as a new multi-media presentation about sustainable straw-bale building.
Visit Website: www.mindenculturalcentre.com
R.D. Lawrence Place Minden
Contact: R.D. Lawrence Place Tel: 705-286-2298
Email: rdlawrenceplace@mindenhills.ca